I've already told the story of being in Manhattan on 9/11. Through the day, vehicles could leave the city, but they could not come back (even taxis). That evening, most people who could leave Manhattan had done so. We were stuck until the next day. We ended up finding a restaurant for dinner in Times Square that was open.

Times Square was just totally bizarre. There were no cars at all. Perhaps one car would pass every five minutes. A couple of guys were roller skating around the streets, I supposed just because they could.

Are you sure they were digitally removed? I remember an old photo of a drunk lying on the sidewalk of a busy street in Paris at mid day but other than the drunk, the streets were deserted. Turned out the picture required a 30 minute exposure and anything that moved was not in the frame long enough to show up on the film. Could this have been shot with a neutral density filter, low iso, small apature over an extended period time?